Beyond Black. Hilary Mantel

believe in Al, and not believe in her, both at once. Faced with the impossible, their minds, like Colette’s, simply scuttled off in another direction.

      ‘Look,’ Alison said, ‘do we have to go through this every time? I would have thought we’d been on the road together for long enough now. And we’ve been making the tapes, haven’t we? Writing this book you say we’re writing? I’d have thought I’d answered most of your questions by now.’

      ‘All except the ones that matter.’

      Al shrugged. A quick dab of Rescue Remedy under the tongue, and then she began to repaint her lips. Colette could see the effort of concentration needed; the spirits were nagging in her ear, wanting to stake out their places for the second half.

      ‘You see, I’d have imagined,’ she said, ‘that sometimes, once in a while, you’d feel the urge to be honest.’

      Alison gave a little comic shiver, like a character in a pantomime. ‘What, with the punters? They’d run a mile,’ she said. ‘Even the ones with the blood pressure would be up and charging out the door. It’d kill them.’ She stood up and pulled down her clothes, smoothing the creases over her hips. ‘And what would that do but make more work for me?’

      ‘Your hem’s up at the back,’ Colette said. Sighing, she sank to her knees and gave the satin a tug.

      ‘I’m afraid it’s my bottom that does it,’ Al said. ‘Oh dear.’ She turned sideways to the mirror, resettled the skirt at what passed for her waistline. ‘Am I OK now?’ She held up her arms, stamped her feet in her high heels. ‘I could have been a flamenco dancer,’ she said. ‘That would have been more fun.’

      ‘Oh, surely not,’ Colette said. ‘Not more fun than this?’ She nudged her own head at the mirror, and smoothed down her hair; damp, it lay on her head like strings of white licqorice.

      The manager put his head around the door. ‘All right?’ he said.

      ‘Will you stop saying that?’ Colette turned on him. ‘No, not all right. I want you out there for the second half, that girl from the bar is useless. And turn the bloody air conditioning up, we’re all melting.’ She indicated Alison. ‘Especially her.’

      Morris rolled lazily on to his back in the doorway and made faces at the manager. ‘Bossy cow, ain’t she?’

      ‘So sorry to disturb your toilette,’ the manager said, bowing to Alison.

      ‘OK, OK, time to move.’ Colette clapped her hands. ‘They’re out there waiting.’

      Morris grabbed Al’s ankle as she stepped over him. She checked her stride, took a half-pace backwards, and ground her heel into his face.

      The second half usually began with a question-and-answer session. When Colette first joined Al she had worried about this part of the evening. She waited for some sceptic to jump up and challenge Al about her mistakes and evasions. But Al laughed. She said, those sort of people don’t come out at night, they stay at home watching Question Time and shouting at the TV.

      Tonight they were quick off the mark. A woman stood up, wreathed in smiles. She accepted the microphone easily, like a professional. ‘Well, you can guess what we all want to know.’

      Al simpered back at her. ‘The royal passing.’

      The woman all but curtsied. ‘Have you had any communication from Her Majesty the Queen Mother? How is she faring in the other world? Has she been reunited with King George?’

      ‘Oh yes,’ Alison said, ‘she’ll be reunited.’

      In fact, the chances are about the same as meeting somebody you know at a main-line station at rush hour. It’s not 14 million to one, like the National Lottery, but you have to take into account that the dead, like the living, sometimes like to dodge and weave.

      ‘And Princess Margaret? Has she seen HRH her daughter?’

      Princess Margaret came through. Al couldn’t stop her. She seemed to be singing a comic song. Nothing derails an evening so fast as royalty. They expect to make the running, they choose the topic, they talk and you’re supposed to listen. Somebody, perhaps the princess herself, was pounding a piano, and other voices were beginning to chime in. But Alison was in a hurry; she wanted to get to a man, the evening’s first man, who’d got his hand up with a question. Ruthless, she gave the whole tribe the brush-off: Margaret Rose, Princess Di, Prince Albert, and a faint old cove who might be some sort of Plantagenet. It was interesting for Al that you got so many history programmes on TV these days. Many a night she’d sat on the sofa, hugging her plump calves, pointing out people she knew. ‘Is that really Mrs Pankhurst?’ she’d say. ‘I’ve never seen her in that hat.’

      The man had risen to his feet. The manager – pretty quick round the room now Colette had given him a rocket – had got the mike across the hall. Poor old bloke, he looked shaky. ‘I’ve never done this before,’ he said.

      ‘Take it steady,’ Al advised. ‘No need to rush, sir.’

      ‘Never been to one of these,’ he said. ‘But I’m getting on a bit myself, now, so…’ He wanted to know about his dad, who’d had an amputation before he died. Would he be reunited with his leg, in spirit world?

      Al could reassure him on the point. In spirit world, she said, people are healthy and in their prime. ‘They’ve got all their bits and whatsits. Whenever they were at their happiest, whenever they were at their healthiest, that’s how you’ll find them in spirit world.’

      The logic of this, as Colette had often pointed out, was that a wife could find herself paired with a pre-adolescent for a husband. Or your son could, in spirit world, be older than you. ‘You’re quite right, of course,’ Al would say blithely. Her view was, believe what you want, Colette: I’m not here to justify myself to you.

      The old man didn’t sit down; he clung, as if he were at sea, to the back of the chair in the row ahead. He was hoping his dad would come through, he said, with a message. Al smiled. ‘I wish I could get him for you, sir. But again it’s like the telephone, isn’t it? I can’t call them, they have to call me. They have to want to come through. And then again, I need a bit of help from my spirit guide.’

      It was at this stage in the evening that it usually came out about the spirit guide. ‘He’s a little circus clown,’ Al would say. ‘Morris is the name. Been with me since I was a child. I used to see him everywhere. He’s a darling little bloke, always laughing, tumbling, doing his tricks. It’s from Morris that I get my wicked sense of humour.’

      Colette could only admire the radiant sincerity with which Al said this: year after year, night after bloody night. She blazed like a planet, the lucky opals her distant moons. For Morris insisted, he insisted that she give him a good character, and if he wasn’t flattered and talked up, he’d get his revenge. ‘But then,’ Al said to the audience, ‘he’s got his serious side too. He certainly has. You’ve heard, haven’t you, of the tears of a clown?’

      This led on to the next, the obvious question: how old was she when she first knew about her extraordinary psychic gifts?

      ‘Very small, very small indeed. In fact, I remember being aware of presences before I could walk or talk. But of course it was the usual story with a sensitive child – sensitive is what we call it, when a person’s attuned to spirit – you tell the grown-ups what you see, what you hear, but they don’t want to know, you’re just a kiddie, they think you’re fantasising. I mean, I was often accused of being naughty when I was only passing on some comment that had come to me through Spirit. Not that I hold it against my mum, God bless her, I mean, she’s had a lot of trouble in her life – and then along came me!’ The trade chuckled, en masse, indulgent.

      Time to draw questions to a close, Alison said; because now I’m going to try to make some more contacts for you. There was applause. ‘Oh you’re so lovely,’ she said. ‘Such a lovely, warm and understanding audience, I can always count on a good time whenever I come in your direction. Now